Monday 5 February 2018 11:42, UK
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady suffered their third Super Bowl loss as a quarterback-head coach duo as the Philadelphia Eagles beat them 41-33 in a thrilling game to end the NFL season.
The pair had been chasing their sixth Lombardi Trophy, but couldn't keep up with a relentless Eagles offense and fell just short in a game that will go down as a classic and saw the Eagles claim their first ever Super Bowl crown.
There was little to choose between the teams as defense gave way to high-powered offense until Brandon Graham came up with a huge strip-sack on Brady for what proved to be the game-defining moment.
"In the end, we just couldn't quite make enough plays, and that was all on me. Disappointing, but I'm proud of the way our team competed," Belichick said.
"These guys are champions, champions of the AFC. They earned that. We just came up a little bit short.
"Tough, tough, way to end. There's a lot of really good things that happened this season, but that's what this game's about.
"Obviously we didn't do a good enough job coaching, missed a lot of opportunities offensively in the first half, didn't play good enough defense, didn't play good enough in the kicking game."
Even though Brady broke the Super Bowl record for passing yards with 505 and threw three touchdown passes, he admitted they needed to score more points - a measure of how relentless both offenses were.
The game broke the Super Bowl record for offensive yards and was the second highest scoring in the history of the season-end finale, falling one short of the 75 scored by San Francisco and San Diego in Super Bowl XXIX.
"I wish we'd have scored more points" said the 40-year-old QB, who was also full or praise for Danny Amendola's eight-catch, 152-yard performance
"He did a great job, I mean, he played great. He played a great game and he made some big plays for us, we needed it
"When Brandin went out, we needed everyone else to step up. [Chris Hogan] had a good game, Danny played great, I mean all the guys played well we just came up short in the end."
Ultimately, he credited the Eagles for their performance - and particularly Brandon Graham's strip sack - but was distraught at not securing the win.
"We had a good chance there and they made a good play - they made a lot of good plays today," he said.
"We battled, it was competitive but we didn’t obviously get the job done".
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